/*
 * Copyright 2008 ZXing authors
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package com.collectplus.express.tools.barcode;

import java.util.Hashtable;

/**
 * The base class for all objects which encode/generate a barcode image.
 * 
 * @author dswitkin@google.com (Daniel Switkin)
 */
public interface Writer {

	/**
	 * Encode a barcode using the default settings.
	 * 
	 * @param contents
	 *            The contents to encode in the barcode
	 * @param format
	 *            The barcode format to generate
	 * @param width
	 *            The preferred width in pixels
	 * @param height
	 *            The preferred height in pixels
	 * @return The generated barcode as a Matrix of unsigned bytes (0 == black, 255 == white)
	 */
	BitMatrix encode(String contents, BarcodeFormat format, int width, int height) throws Exception;

	/**
	 * 
	 * @param contents
	 *            The contents to encode in the barcode
	 * @param format
	 *            The barcode format to generate
	 * @param width
	 *            The preferred width in pixels
	 * @param height
	 *            The preferred height in pixels
	 * @param hints
	 *            Additional parameters to supply to the encoder
	 * @return The generated barcode as a Matrix of unsigned bytes (0 == black, 255 == white)
	 */
	BitMatrix encode(String contents, BarcodeFormat format, int width, int height, Hashtable<String, BarcodeFormat> hints) throws Exception;

}
